CPE Catalog & Events

The construction industry faces many unique challenges to survive and remain profitable. These include specific accounting and reporting aspects for construction contracts and estimating project costs and profitability. Analyze revenue recognition under the percentage of completion method (including comparing current standards to the new FASB revenue standard) by exploring the underlying details. Reduce potential errors made using established concepts, including the shortfalls of the "cost to cost" method. Take a focused look at construction contractors' accounting, reporting and auditing. Discuss techniques and examples that provide a realistic audit approach for the contractor, including detailed auditing procedures for many types of contracts.

Want to level up your advisory or fractional CFO services? Start with what clients care about most: cash flow. This session shows you how to turn cash flow management into a high-impact, high-value offering, while clarifying where your practice fits best across consulting, advisory, and implementation. You'll learn how to spot your ideal clients, leverage cloud-based tools for smarter insights and stronger communication, and price your services for both value and sustainability. It'spractical, strategic, and designed to help you scale your impact. You'll learn how to: Make cash flow management a core part of your value prop Choose the right service model for your firm Use modern tools to deliver insights clients actually use Package, price, and position your services for growth Ideal for advisors ready to deepen client relationships and drive smarter business decisions. This session was recorded on April 17, 2025 for CalCPA'sPractice Management Bootcamp conference.

Accountants and other business professionals who work in Excel extensively become very strong with many aspects of the ubiquitous spreadsheet application. In this course,We'll highlight many of the powerful tools found in Excel and provide details on how they are beneficial and used. Topics include data connectivity, advanced functions available for formula creation, Tables and PivotTables, and charting tools. Many proficient Excel users only utilize a limited percentage of the available functionality when they work with spreadsheets, which is like tying one'shands behind his back. This session will help make participants 'two-fisted' Excel users!

This advanced-level course equips financial and forensic experts with the sophisticated strategies and ethical frameworks necessary to deliver compelling and credible deposition testimony in litigation. Taught by Brian Peter Brinig, JD, CPA/ABV, ASA, a nationally recognized expert witness and educator, the course focuses on the pivotal role of expert testimony in the discovery process and how experts can protect their credibility and professionalism under intense scrutiny. You'll explore the dual landscape of legal expectations and professional standards, including key guidance from the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. Through real-world examples, tactical guidance, and behavioral strategies, learners will understand how to manage deposition settings confidently, communicate effectively with attorneys, and avoid common pitfalls that can undermine testimony. Topics include the distinction between the expert'srole and the lawyer'srole, pre-deposition preparation, advanced communication techniques, handling difficult questions, and maintaining objectivity. This course is ideal for CPAs, forensic accountants, valuation professionals, and other financial experts who may serve as expert witnesses in legal proceedings. Prerequisite Course: Expert Deposition Testimony 101

This advanced course equips CPAs and financial experts with the skills necessary to excel as expert witnesses in trial settings. Building on foundational testimony principles, You'll learn advanced preparation techniques, strategies for delivering persuasive direct examination, and methods for withstanding the challenges of cross-examination. The program emphasizes courtroom demeanor, communication tactics, tactical defenses, and adherence to professional standards, ensuring that expert testimony is credible, defensible, and impactful.

Organizational support for alternative work arrangements (AWAs) is essential for the effective implementation of AWAs in public accounting, yet studies consistently suggest that such organizational support is lacking. Despite mass adoption of telecommuting (one type of AWA) during the COVID-19 pandemic, recent evidence suggests that firms vary greatly in the extent to which they plan to support telecommuting in the post-pandemic environment. Using a sample of 133 public accounting professionals, we explore whether several factors under the organization'scontrol influence perceived organizational support for telecommuting and whether such support is linked with perceived career penalties from telecommuting usage and turnover intentions. Findings indicate that supervisor support for personal/family needs and procedural justice regarding telecommuting requirements are positively associated with perceptions of organizational support for telecommuting. Greater perceived organizational support for telecommuting is associated with both lower perceived career penalties from telecommuting usage and lower turnover intentions.

Analytical procedures evaluate financial information through the examination of plausible relationships among both financial and non-financial data. They also encompass such investigation, when necessary, of the identified fluctuations or relationships that are inconsistent with other relevant information or that differ from expected values by a significant amount.

In this class, we will look at the true beginning of the Form 1099 preparation process: when a relationship with a new vendor is started. We will look at a series of Form W9s with different state-level and tax entity types. We will use that information to analyze how each vendor'sW9, in concert with information about the vendor'sgoods/services provided, influences what kind of 1099 they may or may not receive come January 31. We will also talk about when a Form W9 should be collected from a new vendor.

The current litigation explosion has created tremendous Interest in asset protection. Not only does this area have financial and estate aspects but it directly impacts tax planning. This course is designed to survey opportunities for asset protection that can arise during tax planning and to determine how to properly report such transactions.

Be an Audit Hero: Solve Fraud with Red Flag Mania's Challenge! Calling all lifelong learners and audit enthusiasts! Red Flag Mania's Audit Challenge is your chance to step into the shoes of a real-world auditor and put your skills to the test in a thrilling, self-study program. This interactive experience throws you headfirst into a realistic fraud case. Become a detective of internal controls as you: Hunt down the culprit: Utilize your investigative techniques to identify the perpetrator behind the fraud. Test internal controls: Assess the effectiveness of a company's safeguards and pinpoint weaknesses that allowed the fraud to occur. Upskill yourself: This self-study program turns you into an auditor, cracking a real-world fraud case. Hunt the culprit, test controls, and build trust. Game-based learning sharpens your audit & investigative skills. Enroll now! This course is produced by Red Flag Mania. Want the full experience? Purchase the When We Prey Bundle !

This study examines how a paradigm shift from traditional to digital audits could affect the audit expectation gap. It uncovers possible new areas of the expectation gap and threats and challenges resulting from this paradigm shift. The findings suggest that audit digitalization will result in the profession transitioning from the defensive approach of educating users on auditors' duties to a constructive approach of using digital tools to perform some of the duties that users expect of auditors. Digital technologies have the potential to enhance internal controls and facilitate fraud prevention and detection, thus narrowing the expectation gap with these critical issues. The potential benefits of switching to the constructive approach include lower costs for audit firms, enhanced audit quality, and improved client perceptions of auditors.

Government fraud and embezzlement cases seem to make headlines almost daily. In this timely presentation, Kevin Harper, CPA, will examine real-life fraud cases that have impacted local governments in California. He will detail nine specific fraud schemes he has investigated, exploring how each was carried out, how it was uncovered, and the steps taken to strengthen internal controls to prevent future occurrences. Join us for an insightful session on recognizing and mitigating fraud risks in government operations. This session was recorded live at the CalCPA Governmental Accounting & Auditing Virtual Conference on April 24, 2024.

This course overviews basic fringe benefits and examines their mechanics, compensation methods, valuation, withholding, and accounting. Achievement awards, term life insurance, medical reimbursement, meals & lodging, educational assistance, dependent care, employer-provided automobiles, interest-free loans, etc., are identified. Employer and employee economic and tax considerations are recognized. Fringe benefit requirements and limits are specified and ERISA compliance requirements are determined.

In this session, we will delve into intelligence and asset search methods that enhance investigations and facilitate recoveries. We will examine various sources of publicly available information, learn how to identify and verify pertinent data, and provide examples of how this information can be effectively utilized in traditional forensic accounting scenarios. This session was recorded on March 19, 2024 at the 2024 Fraud & Forensic Accounting Virtual Conference.

Risk oversight by the board of directors is a key component of a firm's enterprise risk management framework, and recently, boards have paid more attention to their firm's tax-planning activities. In this study, we use a hand-collected sample of proxy statement disclosures about the board's role in risk oversight and provide evidence that risk oversight is negatively associated with both tax uncertainty and overall tax burdens. We find that risk oversight is most strongly associated with positions that yield permanent tax benefits and also with less risky tax-planning activities. Overall, the evidence suggests that board risk oversight is associated with more effective tax-planning practices.

In this course, You'll uncover the ten most common financial statement mistakes nonprofits make; and how these errors can jeopardize compliance, transparency, and your organization'scredibility. You'll learn practical policies and procedures to spot, prevent, and fix these pitfalls, helping you boost the accuracy and reliability of your financial reporting. Walk away empowered to strengthen your nonprofit'sfinancial health and build lasting trust with stakeholders. This session was recorded on May 29, 2025, for CalCPA'sNot-for-Profit Organizations Conference.

Contracts are the backbone of the construction industry but also a significant source of financial risk. This session will focus on risk management strategies for contract negotiation, delivery method selection, preconstruction services, change orders, and retainage policies. Learn how CPAs can help clients minimize financial exposure and enhance documentation transparency. This session was recorded on March 25, 2025 for CalCPA'sConstruction Management Conference.

For decades, scholars searched for a connection between a corporation'scurrent performance with respect to sustainability and the future returns of its stock. In 2016, Khan, Serafeim, and Yoon published an apparent breakthrough in this quest: guidance on materiality from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board allowed the construction of corporate sustainability scales that reliably predicted stock returns. Their finding had an immediate and broad impact, but it remains, in its authors own words; just first evidence." Here, we further explore the relationship between material sustainability and stock returns by performing a "model uncertainty analysis."" We reproduce the original estimate but conclude that it is a statistical artifact. We then use machine learning to explore the practicality of employing historical associations to determine which aspects of sustainability are material to investors. We conclude that, for one popular source of data on corporate sustainability, accurate guidance on materiality may be difficult to achieve.

This course examines and explains the practical aspects of using the closely held corporation to maximize after-tax return on business operations. Recent developments giving corporations a competitive edge over other entities are explored and detailed. Practitioners are alerted to often missed fringe benefits, retirement planning opportunities, corporate business deductions, income splitting possibilities and little-known estate planning techniques. The program covers step-by-step tax procedures to form, operate, and ultimately dispose of a closely held corporation. Distinctions between S and C corporations will be unraveled and guidelines for client direction given.

This 4-hour intensive course dives into Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) to help you build and validate powerful metrics in Power BI. Starting with DAX fundamentals and progressing to advanced formulas and time-intelligence functions, You'll learn how to create accurate, insightful measures. Through hands-on practice with PivotTables and real-world scenarios, You'll gain the skills to validate calculations, streamline analysis, and make confident data-driven decisions.